Category Archives: Self-Publishing

My Goodreads giveaway has been running for a week and I’m satisfied with the number of entries thus far. I find it fascinated that mostly women have entered to win. I wonder why?

Is it because…

The cover features two women?

The cover features three men?

The cover features men and women?

The book’s marketing copy?

Mostly women read medieval fantasy books?

Goodreads membership is mostly women?

Mostly women enter book giveaways?

Or is it something that I haven’t even considered?

I have no idea what demographic is drawn to my book. You would think it appeals to everyone that reads medieval fantasy novels with characters that have magical powers, but that’s probably being overly simplistic.

What I decided to do was go through the current list of giveaways with the intent of finding medieval fantasy books that I would be interested in reading.

The first thing that drew my attention was the theme and artistry of the cover. If it looked medieval, not too cheesy, not too basic, and gave me a hint about the characters or what the story was about, then it was worth investigating. The title of the book didn’t matter. Then I read the marketing copy to determine if the story would keep my attention. If there was some type of mystery to be solved or questions to be answered as a result of certain events AND the story generally appealed to me, then I would enter the giveaway. Giveaways by best-selling authors definitely influenced my decision to enter. A story intertwined with actual historical events didn’t appeal to me. I prefer documentaries. When I watch movies that fictionalize historical events, I throw out the actual history and watch the movie for its entertainment and cinematic value.

Did this little exercise help me figure out why more women than men entered to win my book? Not even close.

So what can we take away from all of this?

Your cover should strongly reflect your genre and provide a hint about the type of characters in your story or the story itself.

For me, the title of the book didn’t matter. It may matter to you and your audience, but it wasn’t important with regard to drawing my attention to a book.

Your marketing copy should include a question that is important for your character(s) to answer that will intrigue the reader.

If you have any additional thoughts about what makes a book giveaway appealing to readers, leave them in the comments below.

My book giveaway runs until July 19, 2015. Click here to enter for a chance to win!

If you’re going to self-publish a print copy of your book on CreateSpace, you’ll need a cover image. You can either do-it-yourself or find someone that can do it for you. If you’re not graphically inclined, finding someone to do it is your best route, but I encourage you to learn the tools of the trade because it will allow you to create promotional and website graphics yourself.

If you’re going to prepare the cover image yourself, you’re going to need Adobe Photoshop or Adobe InDesign. If you don’t own either of these products, I recommend getting Photoshop. It’s only $9.99/month and a lot more versatile for creating other graphics you’ll need as an author. InDesign is the right choice if you’re going to use it for your interior as well. I used Microsoft Word for my interior and it turned out just fine.

Step one: Before you commission artwork, search for a stock photo or start drawing the art yourself, head on over to CreateSpace and determine the dimensions of your book (width and length of the front cover) a.k.a. trim size and how many pages your book will contain.

I was in Barnes & Noble today, and I brought up my book on one of the Nooks on display in the store. To my surprise it stated I could read the book for free for an hour and after that, I could purchase it or come back tomorrow and continue reading for free.

WHAT?! My book isn’t free!

It caught me off guard, because I didn’t know that Nook owners could do this. Is it a bad thing? Not really. If readers wants to go to Barnes & Noble every day and read my book to the end, then more power to them!

If a person likes to hang out in Barnes & Noble after work or school, or on the weekends, getting a Nook for this benefit makes perfect sense. It’s only $99 and ships for free.